The present invention relates generally to telecommunications call processing and more particularly to call waiting service features.
Call waiting services are offered by numerous service providers and are well known by those skilled in the art. Call waiting services generally notify a customer that is busy on a previous call that a current call has been placed to the customer. Call waiting services commonly utilize an audible tone that is transmitted to the customer, to notify the customer that the current call is waiting. When the customer is notified that the current call is waiting, the customer can decide whether or not to suspend the previous call to take the current call. Accordingly, information about the current call aids in the customer's decision. U.S. Pat. No. 4,899,358 describes a system that provides an audible representation of the calling party's name to notify a customer that a call is waiting. This system substitutes the name in place of the tone commonly used to notify the customer. While substitution of the name in place of the tone provides the customer with additional information, delivering information in this format can result in confusion for the customer. For example, providing just the name of a caller can be confusing when the name is interjected in the middle of a conversation without warning.
Other systems provide additional information to the customer in varying formats. U.S. Pat. No. 5,309,512 describes a system that first provides a tone to indicate that a current call is waiting and then waits for a command from the customer. This system only provides the name of the calling party after receiving the command. To provide the required command, the customer completes a flash hook at his telephone station. The flash hook puts the previous caller on hold for a significant amount of time while the customer hears the name of the current caller and then decides whether or not to take the current call. Providing information in this format also creates additional problems for the customer. For example, the customer is not immediately provided with the information necessary to decide whether or not to take the current call. This results in an inconvenience for the both the previous caller and the customer, especially if the customer ultimately decides not to take the current call and returns to the previous call after a significant delay in the call.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/044,574 was filed Mar. 19, 1998 and commonly assigned with the present application is hereby incorporated herein by reference. This application discloses a method and system in which a call waiting message includes a call waiting indicator and an audible representation of information associated with a current calling party. The call waiting message alerts the customer that a current call is waiting and provides the customer with information that assists the customer in deciding whether or not to take the current call. The call waiting indicator and the information associated with the current calling party are automatically transmitted to the customer without any customer commands. The associated information is voiced to the customer using a text to speech function.
While this disclosed system is very effective at providing the call waiting message, some caller names are difficult to accurately render audibly using the text to speech capability. These names include names having nonstandard pronunciations, some foreign names and other names that may be misinterpreted by the text to speech logic as enforced by parsing rules. This misinterpretation of the calling party's name can be embarrassing to the calling party and it limits the utility of the call waiting system if the called party can not reliably determine the caller's identity.